The Monday morning session of SCCR 26 went very fast. The agenda was approved in few minutes. Two days will be about the broadcasting treaty, two days will be about libraries and archives and one day on education. 6 side events: artists resale, authors forum launch, authorized entities, IP and video games study, Libraries and archives and Museum and IP, WIPO guide. The back of the room is packed with representatives from broadcasting organizations, and well-known figures from the content industry including Neil Turkewitz (RIAA), Christopher Marchich (Motion Picture Association), Bradley Silver (Time Warner) and David Fares (NewCorp).
The pressure to move the broadcasting treaty is palpable. Here is the KEI statement read out this morning:
KEI Statement at WIPO SCCR 26 December 16, 2013, on proposal for a treaty for broadcasting organizations
KEI is still unconvinced the time is right to conclude a new treaty for broadcasting organizations. It is premature to set up a diplomatic conference in 2015.
There remains major disagreements about the objectives of such a treaty.
The broadcasting entities want a treaty that provides intellectual property rights for their broadcasts extended to new platforms, such as cable, satellite television and (for some) the Internet. This is the wrong paradigm for the Internet, and unnecessary for any platform, where copyright and theft of service laws provide balance as regards users rights, and adequate remedies against unauthorized uses. To the extent that creative works are distributed through broadcasting networks, they are nearly always protected by copyright. In the small cases where the broadcast involves material in the public domain, it would be a mistake to give the broadcaster an intellectual property right, merely for transmitting information.
Piracy of broadcasting signals already is against the law under copyright, as well as under various national and local laws on the theft of services.
The advocates of a broadcasting treaty have not shown that there is a problem in the area of piracy that cannot be addressed by existing laws on copyright or theft of service. The treaty is in essence an attempt by corporate broadcasting entities to change outcomes of licensing negotiations, by giving the broadcasters a right that they would otherwise have to acquire by contract, in return for something they would give the copyright holders.
Now, regarding the latest proposal by Japan on the scope of application.
Japan proposes a new article 6 bis which would grant broadcasting and cablecasting organizations protection for either “their transmission signals excluding on-demand transmission signals” or “simultaneous and unchanged transmission signals of their broadcast” over computer networks.
Clearly, SCCR26 should examine the consequences of the Japanese proposal on access to knowledge and the consumption of cultural goods. How would these norms prescribed by Japan affect the way we use YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter, Instagram, Bing and Google?